Multicasting allows one-to-many communication over a network to allow a source to distribute information, such as video content, to a group of receivers simultaneously. Each receiver typically sends a join message in order to join a multicast group to enable each receiver to receive the information broadcast by the source. Typically, the source and receivers are connected together through one or more network elements, e.g. switches, at a datacenter. Typically, such a network element will often include a modular switch chassis having one or more modular line cards installed therein. Each line card includes a number of transmitting/receiving ports to allow communication between network devices coupled to the switch. Typically, when a modular switch chassis receives a request to join a group, the modular switch chassis programs a routing entry specifying the source, mulitcast group, and identifying a set of outgoing interfaces. Generally, multicast entries are programmed uniformly across all forwarding instances. Each multicast route entry maintains a list of outgoing interfaces (OIF List) to which an incoming multicast data packet matching the route is replicated. In hardware-forwarded route entries, these OIF lists are stored inside the hardware in replication tables which are limited in size. On a typical modular switch chassis, whenever the control plane protocol receives a group request, source join, etc. associated with a multicast broadcast, the modular switch chassis programs the routing entries to a set of outgoing interface lists (OIFs) symmetrically across all line cards. As a result, the scalability limit of a switching node is limited to the scale of each forwarding instance.